Jamelle [of the US of Jamerica] criticizes Andrew Sullivan for making a defense of our current health care system on the basis of innovation. Sullivan notes that medication to deal with AIDs saved his life, so he’s supportive of that sort of thing. He similarly knocks Ross Douthat as being overly sanguine about the impact of the crackdown on crime which led to mass imprisonment.
In fact, I’m bothered by Ross Douthat’s output for similar reasons. Both him and Sullivan have a “gated-community” outlook; “acceptability” is regularly defined as “what’s best for me.” And again, while this can make for compelling reading on issues which are quite personal, it also leads Douthat to - for example - describe our incarceration heavy approach to crime as “largely vindicated by events,” completely oblivious to the immense costs said approach has had on poor communities and communities of color (Which Ta-Nehisi Coates illustrates with a heartbreaking story of a friend gunned down by police). Indeed, it’s precisely because of their “gated-community conservativism” that I’m skeptical of their long-term project of revitalizing conservatism by means of turning its attentions to minorities, and working-class American. Doing so requires approaching policy concerns with a broader public in mind, and neither of them has really reached that point (though, in fairness, Douthat is making progress).
Ta-Nehisi Coates also has done a defense of self-interested politics". I tend to agree with him, although he's a better writer than I am by far so I'll just quote him instead.
I firmly believe that the case against racism is not just that it's unfair to black people, but that it doesn't benefit the country as a whole. When I look at the large numbers of black men in the justice system, I'm not very interested in how much the justice system hates blacks. I'm interested in whether our justice policy is in the best interest of the country. Perhaps, I define "interest" too broadly. I include in that definition, not simply your short and long-term well being, but how you want to live your life. I hear people say that they support "black issues" even when they aren't in their interest. Hmm, I guess. But that's like saying it wasn't in my interest to be a writer. I should have gone to law school. Certainly I would have made more money. But I include in my interest what I want to see out the world, what makes me happy, what makes me smile, what I like and love. I guess it's not in my interest to spend a whole day watching football games--I could be making money. But it certainly makes me happy.
I don't buy Sullivan’s argument that innovation would be sacrificed, but I think wanting innovation in part from personal experience is a perfectly legit motivation. The thing here is that those benefiting from radical new health care innovations are a minority versus those who benefit from being able to rely on health care being available. That's a majority whose interest deserve to be respected, but also kept in perspective. So long as he's honestly and clearly arguing from personal experience and self-interest I've got no problem with it. The problem is stuff like the dishonest No Exit article published when he was editing TNR which was full of lies about Clinton-care.
This isn't to say I don't think some people need to think consistently about the greater good, but I don't think those people will ever be the majority of the public discourse. Also, the ability to try move beyond self-interest is immensely helped by privilege. Hence the Red State, Blue State findings that the culture war tends to among rich voters.
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